


Great What the Fire's Given Us

by telm_393



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Superpowers, Blood and Gore, Canon Era, Captivity, Developing Relationships, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Grief/Mourning, Illusions, Mental Instability, Moral Ambiguity, Past Character Death, Revenge, Self-Mutilation, Teambuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: Emma Cullen starts fires. Joshua Faraday reads minds. Goodnight Robicheaux makes strong people stronger. Billy Rocks controls and creates metal. Sam Chisolm commands darkness. Jack Horne can be any animal he wants to be. Red Harvest makes living dreams. Vasquez heals, Vasquez damages, and Vasquez sees what isn’t meant to be seen. And that’s only the short of it.Bartholomew Bogue is the murderous robber baron who tortures and exploits gifted people, and every single one of the eight wants him gone.Needless to say, his reign is done.





	1. Plans

**Author's Note:**

> This was a blast to write, and I hope you have fun reading it, whenever it's done.
> 
> Also, allow me to expand on some tags:
> 
> The self-mutilation is purely in the service of a character's superpowers. Most of the gore is in chapter 3.
> 
> There's a couple of brief passages in here that could be read as suicidal ideation.
> 
> The past character death is Matthew, fridged across time and space. Since he is only posthumously a character, I decided not to tag this F/M. 
> 
> The graphic depictions of illness tag is for an infection and alcohol withdrawal/Delirium Tremens respectively.
> 
> There is technically Billy/Goodnight, but it is so barely mentioned that I didn't think it needed any sort of tag.
> 
> The art is by Chibifukurou and it is perfect in every way, look at it, drink it in.
> 
> Also, this is not done yet. Chapter four will be out within one to four business...months. Or less. Or more. Really depends. Though don't worry, I'll be writing a...bunch of other fic in the meantime too! I'm sure you weren't worried.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Sometimes your very existence—_

_from your home to your mind,_

_your spirit, your family, the love of your life—_

_is set aflame, until everything you were has been burnt away—_

_all while the fire, like an insult, rages on._

 

_But for everything there is a reason,_

_an answer to the timeless question—_

 

_why?_

 

_Because, though all you had is gone,_

_there is still something in you that knows_

_all is only lost if you let yourself die—_

_so, instead, here’s what you will do:_

_build a home in the fire and_

_—even through the flames—_

_find your own light._

 

_There is a future in front of you,_

_all so bitter and bright—_

_allies to meet_

_and battles to fight._

 

                                  

 

 

Emma runs hot, and these days she's burning. Her blood boils and her irises have turned the same red as her hair. She doesn't have Matthew to cool her down anymore, and her body is rebelling.

Emma set out on horseback and now she's running, but she'll stop soon enough.

She'll stop when she finds what she’s looking for, and then she’ll go where cruel fate is taking her.

She’s going to set fire to Bartholomew Bogue's empire, and it ain’t a one woman job.

+

She finds Joshua Faraday in a saloon in a town some miles from Taos, and she knows he's one of her kind in seconds. She's got a knack for telling when someone’s special, most talented people do. Normal people take longer to figure it out, especially when gifts aren't visible, and his certainly aren't.

It’s his mind that’s special, she sees it in his eyes, pale and full of unnatural knowing. He's reclining in his chair, not a care in the world, playing hand after hand, losses too calculated to be anything but tools to throw the others off.

When the men he's playing with leave, he looks straight into Emma's eyes and his voice, smooth and playful, echoes in her head, so clear that she can't help but start. _Well, lady, why don't you come over? You're already watching me, ain't you?_

Emma is dumbstruck. She's never met a psychic who can speak in someone's head. Hasn’t met many psychics at all, come to think of it. Powers of the mind are the rarest of the lot, she’d wager.

_I'm more than good at what I do, Mrs. Cullen. I read minds better than speak to 'em, though, I gotta admit. Can only really speak to 'em when I'm looking the person right…in…the…eye._

Emma doesn't look away, just walks over to him.

"Can you make it stop?” she asks.

He shrugs. "'Course I can. Already have. I know what I want to know, and yes. I'll join you."

Emma thinks this is easier than she thought it'd be.

Faraday shrugs. "I got my own business with Bart Bogue."

There's darkness in his eyes, and Emma smiles wide. "Good." Then she says, "I thought you could make it stop.”

Faraday's smirk turns bitter. "Well," he admits, "Not quite.”

+

They ride to Valmont next. Colorado's a ways away, but Faraday promises up and down that what—or rather, _who_ —they find when they get there'll be worth the ride.

She doesn’t ask him how he knows, because she’s not really up for talking, and it’s not so much that she trusts Faraday to tell her the truth (the man’s a more powerful psychic than she thought could exist, she can’t trust him with much of anything), it’s that she can _feel_ that Faraday wants to wipe Bogue off the face of the earth with an intensity that nearly matches Emma’s. She imagines that Faraday can tap into minds that feel similar among the few gifted people nearby that can even hope to match him and Emma in power.

Emma puts up with the flirting because nothing’s ever going to come of it and they’re both entirely aware of that. He knows about Matthew.

He knows a lot. She thinks it ought to be more threatening than it is, but at least she doesn't have to speak so much. She figures out quickly when he's _really_ digging in her head and when he's just him. The difference is almost imperceptible, but it's there. It feels a bit like a headache.

After that first day, he doesn't speak to her in her mind. What's the point, he says, if he can just speak to her in person. Ain't smart to depend on the powers all the time, is it?

He’s right. That’s why Emma knows how to shoot a gun. That’s what saved her in Rose Creek. That and dumb luck, though she’s not sure she’d call the world she lives in now a product of _luck._

While they make their way to Colorado, Emma tries to figure out what Faraday has against Bogue, whether he lost someone to him or whether Bogue or his people did something to Faraday himself.

One night, Faraday says, "Both."

She understands.

+

In Valmont they find Robicheaux and Billy, legends and outcasts both. Emma is nearly struck dumb at the sight of them, and a little annoyed that Faraday didn’t just _tell_ her who they were going to find, since she already knew at least who Robicheaux was.

They watch Billy make knives out of thin air as Robicheaux sits back, eyes hooded. It looks like he’s barely paying attention, but Faraday says Robicheaux is a power enhancer, and Billy is already strong enough that together they're unstoppable.

It’s funny. Emma knows Robicheaux's reputation as the Angel of Death, but she didn’t even know he was gifted.

“It’s not the kind of gift that’s hard to hide,” Faraday said, shrugging. “Can’t attack anyone outright with that, never mind how strong.”

She needs them, and after they collect the money they've conned the good drunk men of Valmont out of, Emma and Faraday take them aside.

Emma says what she’s rehearsed, words clumsy in her mouth. “I have a proposal for you.”

She stands strong, and Billy and Robicheaux look interested enough. Faraday just leans against the saloon wall, hat pulled over his eyes.

She says, "I heard you have a bone to pick with Bartholomew Bogue. So do we."

Robicheaux narrows his eyes at her. "Now, how do you know that?”

Emma gives Faraday a significant look because she doesn’t think she could tell the truth without choking up, and she’d really rather not. Robicheaux seems to catch on quick. "Ah," he says, "I see. Apologies, Miss Cullen, I must consult with my partner."

Like that, he turns to silent Billy Rocks, and they conference, though not with many words. Emma wonders if they're more than they seem, because she’s had to hide exactly what she can do for most of her life, and in that way she’s learned a lot about secrets and why people may keep them. When she shoots a look at Faraday, he nods, almost unnoticeable.

Emma doesn't mind. They're all freaks here, even among freaks, and she'll take inverts when their powers are so strong that they could probably bring down a town all on their own, and a mine with no problem at all. She doesn't have time for judgment.

They say they'll travel with her, that bringing down Bogue once and for all, well, it's about time, suicide mission or not.

Emma wants her town back, her people back. She wants to stop running. She wants to make the wide, wild land around her a safer place for talented people again, wants to make the promise of moving westward what it used to be.

Mostly, she wants revenge for the ache in her heart.

"Hear, hear," Faraday mutters from next to her. "Hear, hear."

She asks him if he's got anyone else in mind, because there's not enough yet, powerful as they are, to truly destroy Bogue from the bottom to the top, to give the trapped miners and railroad workers a life, or maybe at least some money and freedom, to free the captives he's taken for his freak shows, to keep him from slaughtering whole towns and taking the most special ones there, to keep him from killing good men like Matthew.

They’re close, though. The idea of what they can already do makes her dizzy with vicious excitement. She never imagined doing something like this, certainly never imagined meeting anyone as or more powerful than her. She never imagined going on an adventure.

In response to her query, Faraday closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose like he's got a headache, and shakes his head after a full few minutes, looking a bit green around the edges. “I’d already met Robicheaux and Billy’s minds a while back, passing through. I ain’t got the energy to just _find_ different minds like this.”

"Here," Robicheaux says, "Let me help."

Faraday gives him a long, appraising look, and then he shrugs and nods, easy as that. Emma wonders if it’s easier for psychics to make decisions than those who aren’t, and figures it is. Robicheaux puts his hand on Faraday's forehead like he's checking for a fever.

Faraday's eyes snap open.

Emma takes a step back just from surprise, because they’ve gone a shocking color like polished gold, or what she imagines polished gold looks like, gleaming under the sun.

It’s a few minutes before something in Faraday’s face breaks, and a tear slips down his cheek. He mouths something to himself. Emma’s almost sure that he said _there you are,_ though she obviously can’t say why. She looks away. It feels too intimate to watch.

Faraday twists away from Robicheaux after a few minutes more, breathing heavily, and he says, "Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." And then he asks, "You know a Sam Chisolm?"

Robicheaux looks a little sad, in the way people thinking of something long past sometimes do. “Yes.”  

Faraday nods. "I know who he’s with—I know where he's at."

“Where?” Robicheaux asks, something pained in his voice, almost like longing. Emma wonders what their history is, and sneaks another look at Faraday, but he must not be using his powers that much right now, because he just shrugs with one shoulder, focused on lighting a cigarette. His hands are shaking.

Emma imagines it must be awfully stressful, a gift like his, especially with Robicheaux enhancing it like that. She wonders how much gets through when he’s blocking most of it out, if it’s a quiet murmur or just some easy knowledge, if he tunes in to certain thoughts when he hears something interesting; but when she thinks about it, she’s not even sure how his normal mind reading works.

She doesn’t think she’d like it, however it is, being any kind of psychic, especially one like Faraday. It’s pretty incredible, she thinks (a little grudgingly, because, powerful as Faraday is, and as much of a friend as he might possibly become, he’s still something of a handful), that he’s not completely mad. A little flighty, a little vicious, but mostly sane, as far as she can tell.

Before Faraday answers Robicheaux, he shoots Emma a smug smirk. “I got used to it.” It’s then that he turns to a vaguely confused Robicheaux and a vaguely irritated Billy, and says, “He’s in the mountains with… some other men. Men that’ll be more’n useful to us, if a little hard to read.”

“Men that’ll complete the group?” Emma asks, blazing with hope.

Faraday nods. “If they’ll have us.” His eyes are a little far away, but Emma leaves him be, and doesn’t ask what he means, too afraid of an answer she won’t like.

“Will you be able to get us there?” Billy asks. Emma thinks it’s the first time she’s heard his voice. She’s never heard an accent like his, but then, she’s never known any of his kind.

Faraday shrugs. “Probably, with some help from the _Angel of Death_ over there.”

There’s a bit of poison in his words, and Robicheaux’s mouth twists bitterly, as though he tasted it. Billy scowls, but there’s nothing more. Emma is mildly irritated. She hates that not knowing.

She lets it go, though. She’s got more to think about than Faraday’s little mental jabs. She doesn’t need to know everything, and what she does need to know she is sure she’ll find out in time.

They set up camp next to a lake close to an abandoned mine and the mountains themselves, at the foot of what she can see now is something of a trail, worn into the mountain from years of use by who knows how many people.

It takes a while, that night, to figure out where Chisolm and his people (whoever they may be, whatever their relation to Faraday may be) are, and both Faraday and Robicheaux are exhausted after, but Faraday tells them that the men they’re looking for aren’t too far, hidden up there in the Rockies, and says that they’re actually easier to find with his mind since they’re so alone up there, and since (but this part he mutters) their heads are so damn weird.

Faraday and Robicheaux keep watch that night, and Emma can hear their low voices, Faraday’s a little bitter, Robicheaux’s a little edgy. They lull her to an uneasy half-sleep.

(It used to be easy enough for her to get to sleep, because there used to be someone sleeping next to her. She would throw an arm over her Matthew’s chest and press her forehead to the cool crook of his neck and together they would drift away.)

Difficult sleep or not, it’s a little while later that Faraday has to wake her as Robicheaux wakes Billy. Faraday says, in an urgent whisper, “They’re here, they found us, they got too many talents, too many fuckin’ guns, too many men.”

Emma rises from the ground, one hand wrapped around her loaded gun and the other sparking at the fingertips.

“No, no,” Faraday says. “No! We have to _run_ this time, we can’t afford to lose anyone, especially not you.”

“We’re strong,” Emma starts, and Faraday grabs her shoulder and shakes hard enough that she loses her balance. Her fingertips catch fire, but he doesn’t falter.

“We _run.”_

Emma burns, but she knows that Faraday’s right. They can’t afford to get snuffed out like this.

She will destroy these people in due time, she reassures herself. It’ll be worth the wait.

The thought keeps her going as she and the others ride away, trying their best to keep quiet, keep even their horses from making too much noise. They ride as fast as they can and end up dismounting at that abandoned mine, crouching down in a room full of explosives.

“You said they had a reader,” Emma whispers.

Faraday shrugs. “Not as strong as me.”

“Can you block our minds to him?”

“Just mine.”

“What could make it harder for him to find us?”

“I think we’re far enough away that it don’t matter.” In that moment, Faraday’s head snaps up like he’s heard something. “Shush,” he whispers harshly.

Then he closes his eyes, and Emma hears in her head, _Use your powers._

Emma thought that Faraday couldn’t speak in other people’s minds without looking them right in the eye, but then she sneaks a glance at him and notices Robicheaux’s hand on Faraday’s shoulder.

Ah.

_Just do it!_

Emma closes her eyes and allows the heat to pool in her hands, bright like sunshine, and sinks into the fire without thinking of anything else, not even the hoofbeats outside of the barn. She barely even notices when the barn door is pushed open, even though whoever’s here must see them, or at least their horses. She feels nothing but calm, nothing but fire. It’s almost like sleeping.

Somehow, by some miracle, whoever makes their way into the barn doesn’t seem to see them; ends up just leaving, and what seems like hours later, what might _be_ hours later, that strange calm feeling starts to drip away and there’s the damp barn and the others.

Emma opens her eyes and gasps, snuffing her powers out for the time being.

“What was that?” Billy hisses, scrap metal dropping to the ground.

“I shielded us,” Faraday whispers back. “It was easier to do if you were all concentrating on something else. You’re welcome.”

No one thanks him, and Emma wonders if they’re all feeling as off-balance as she is. She feels oddly well-rested, though, and notices the first rays of sunshine peeking through the barn door. “We need to go. If they’re looking for us, we need to go to your friends now.” She takes in a shuddering breath. “I didn’t think they’d look for me.”

“Considering what you can do, darlin’?” Robicheaux says. “I can’t say I’m surprised at all.”

“I’m not your darling,” is all Emma has to say to that before they try to figure out where to go from here.

“I won’t let them take you away, darling,” her Matthew promised, swore up and down, a gentleman to the bitter, bitter end and Emma just told him to stop over and over again, told him to hide, told him she could protect herself.

And she could, couldn’t she?

Out of all of them, it was her that was able to run.

She can’t imagine what would’ve happened if they’d caught her. Can’t imagine what will happen if they catch her now. They can’t do anything to her, she tells herself. She’s too strong. Stronger than most have seen, strong enough that she’s the kind of gifted person that even other gifted fear. She’d get away before they could do anything to her.

“Yeah, that’s what we all think,” Faraday says that night when he and Emma are keeping watch, both perched on big rocks while the others sleep, near their previous camp but not quite there anymore, and Emma’s still stuck in her own head. There’s bitterness in his voice, and Emma wants to know why, but not enough that she’ll ask.

“He’s dead because of me. They’re all dead or gone because of _me,_ ” Emma says back, and Faraday doesn’t argue, just briefly claps her on the shoulder.

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“I’m going to fix it all.”

“…Might as well try. That’s why I’m with you, ain’t it? Saving people from Bogue. I never got that chance.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just go to sleep.”

“I’d rather keep watch.”

“Suit yourself, Emma.”

Robicheaux mutters something in the dark, and Faraday winces and shakes his head as Billy’s voice joins with Robicheaux’s, soothing and too low to make out.

“That man dreams loud,” Faraday mutters.

“What does he dream about?” Emma asks, curiosity cropping up for just a second.

Faraday shrugs. “What we all dream about.”

(Emma dreams of death.)

“Yep,” Faraday says.

She really should’ve guessed, given that they even called the man the Angel of Death. Emma’s family weren’t Confederate sympathizers, but everyone knew of the legend. She wonders if any of it is true. She hasn’t seen Robicheaux shoot, but then, he’s got Billy. He’s got all of them. She wonders how powerful Billy can get with Robicheaux’s help, but she wonders that about all of them and she knows she’s in no position to find out yet, not when they don’t trust her.

Affable as Robicheaux and Faraday are, she can’t expect them to, and Billy doesn’t seem like the type to trust anyone.

“I trust you enough,” Faraday offers, and instead of responding, Emma turns away and watches for enemies.

+

They make their way to the cabin Faraday promises exists the next day, leaving the horses in the nearest stable that Faraday says'll actually take care of them, letting Goodnight throw some money at the stable owners to make sure the mounts will be well cared for. They've decided it'll be easier to go by foot through the thick grass and pines and boulders and streams.

Emma's never been to a place like this before, one that looks like she'd imagine a little house in a fairytale would be hidden.

Faraday says 'they'll' be at the cabin. Emma still isn't sure who 'they' are, and she doesn't know how much she cares, as long as they can help her. The not caring is becoming a familiar feeling, because she's numb most of the time, when she's not consumed by a need to do something about her husband and her town, a need that always turns to rage when it reminds her that she'll never be able to save him.

She can't stop thinking about her Matthew, what he'd do right now, what he'd say. Sometimes she imagines that Matthew's still alive after all, that he's just at home, that he's waiting for her while she goes on her adventure. He was never an adventurous sort, preferred reading about all that. Sometimes he'd even make up stories. He liked telling stories to the children in town, and they loved listening to them. He always wanted children, but Emma had a difficult time conceiving. The town doctor reckoned it had something to do with her gift.

In the end, it didn't matter all that much. Matthew was content with playing Pied Piper to the town's children and Emma was fine as she was, and they had a life together. They loved each other in a way she really thinks most people never get to love anyone, and she does not feel lucky at all for having had the chance to love Matthew Cullen.

She has to bring her attention back to the terrain, though, when they reach a clearing ringed by pines. Emma's no tracker, but even she can see footprints.

And paw prints.

"Just a bit more," Billy offers, and Emma pushes forward.

"They're close, they're close," Faraday's muttering to himself, the most unhinged she's ever heard him, strain in his voice.

"Faraday?" she asks in a low voice. "Are you ill?"

"No. They're just close, they're just—” Faraday's head snaps up, and Emma's taken aback by the fear in his eyes. "Oh, shit, wait!"

Emma doesn't have the chance to ask him who he's yelling at before the day dims.

The sun was shining low in the sky before, sending brilliant light through the branches of the pines, but now the sun rays are being replaced with some substance that looks like black smoke winding its way through the branches instead, crawling down the tree trunks like vines, curling over the green grass until the whole ground is covered in rolling shadows. Emma is, for a moment, terrified, and then she remembers that being terrified isn't good for anything and the shadows are weighing her down in some way, sucking her down like quicksand.

She puts her hands out in front of her, palms down, and lets out a blast of fire that makes the shadows disperse, slithering away like snakes as she covers herself with light, flames licking their way from her fingers up her arms as fire threads through her hair.

She is not afraid of shadows.

The others are illuminated again in the fire, and they stare at her.

"Run," she says, and she sprints forward, rucking her skirt up, the fire at her feet cutting through the shadows that grasp at her, and the others follow suit.

They'll make it. Faraday is babbling something at Goodnight about how he just has to grasp one mind, just one goddamn mind and tell them who they are, and Goodnight keeps saying desperate things that all come back to the man named Sam, but for now Emma's just thinking of getting out of here and getting to the damn cabin. She figures it'll be easier for Faraday to work his magic once he's out of this pit, and maybe once Goodnight's--friend?--sees his face he'll figure out that they're not a damned threat.

Not to them.

They're out of the godforsaken ring of pines, finally, but the daylight and the clear blue sky are still dimmed by clouds of shadow above them. There's a trail, though, that's been hacked through this new clearing, and Emma feels the others move closer to her, flanking her. She feels powerful. She likes it.

Then there's a roar, and Emma hears a sound like several knives being unsheathed at once, and turns her head to look at Billy, who is now surrounded by sharpened, gleaming metal. She takes in a shaky breath. Incredible.

Goodnight, for his part, is carrying a rifle, but Emma assumes that he's mostly just enhancing Billy's powers, given that he's not actually using it.

Faraday's got two pistols out too, and he looks right at home with them in his hands.

Another roar, and then a grizzly comes out of just about nowhere, charging toward them from out of what looks like some kind of pool of cloudy water suspended in the air. It disintegrates, turning into sand that disappears before it hits the ground, and Emma puts her hands out in front of her, urging a pulse of fire towards the grizzly. He's not quite able to dodge, but he twists out of her way enough that the flames just singe his fur. He snarls at her, and Faraday takes a shot that would hit the grizzly right in the flank, except the grizzly isn't there anymore. Instead, there's a huge falcon, and Faraday's bullet embeds itself into a nearby tree.

"Well, shit," Goodnight says from behind Emma, and Billy takes over, making a violent motion with his hands like he's throwing something and hitting the falcon in its wing. It shrieks in pain and tumbles to the ground, where it becomes a grizzly again, bleeding from a knife wound in its shoulder.

Emma surges forward again as Josh says, "Robicheaux, Robicheaux, I have an—”

"You're a goddamn lunatic!"

"Come on!"

"Just do it!" Billy says over his shoulder as he flings a few more pieces of sharpened metal in the direction of the charging grizzly. Emma steps forward and puts her hands out again, creates another surge of fire that hits the grizzly's flank this time.

It roars in anger and charges at her, but Billy's able to intercept it as Emma throws herself out of the way, scrambles across the ground, letting her hands trail along the grass, catching it on fire as the shadows around her preoccupy themselves with putting it out instead of capturing her, and she looks over at Billy, slicing at the bear that now seems to be some kind of giant wolf and also doesn't seem to be flagging too much, though he's losing some blood, and then Josh and Goodnight almost pressed against a pine, Goodnight's hands closed tightly around Josh's wrists, both of their heads bowed in what looks like thought, as if they're praying.

Well, Emma sure hopes they’re doing something other than looking stupid.

She looks away from the others and right at the cabin, which really isn't far away at all. If she runs, she could reach it in a minute. She could've sworn it wasn't there before, or that there were trees there before, but that's not what matters. What matters it that this is probably where they were going, and she can see men standing on the porch, draped in the same wispy shadows that cover the rest of Emma's world right now. She picks herself up and tries, again, to run, trying her best to keep her skirt out of the way, but then there's something—someone—in front of her, and she stops cold.

"Emma," her Matthew says, smiling. "I feel it's been an awfully long time since we talked, don't you?"

Emma's breath catches in her throat and tears prick at her eyes.

"Matthew? Matthew, you died."

He looks a little concerned at that, and looks down at himself and then back up at her and shrugs. "Well, I guess I didn't realize, then."

"How are..." Emma says, but her voice dies in her throat.

He looks so real. He _is_ real, isn't he?

"Matthew, I missed you," she says, a tear running down her cheek and the flames around her calming just a bit. "It's been Hell on earth.”

Matthew sighs sadly. "I'm sorry. I never meant to leave you."

"Of course you didn't, I know that, but I don't know how I've managed it, I don't know how I've gotten by without you."

She's so entranced that she barely notices the shadows fading away, Goodnight running up to the cabin, Faraday puking his guts out next to the tree, Billy and the creature he's been fighting breaking apart as the creature turns itself into a cat and runs back to the cabin, leaving a trail of blood behind it and Billy himself nursing a wound on his thigh and another on his side.

She hears, "Sam Chisolm. I told you it was me."

And then, just as all of that happens, Matthew's eyes turn the color of polished green glass, and then he begins to fade, a placid smile on his face.

He couldn't be real, she thought, and she was right.

She reaches out for him, but he slips through her fingers like so much dust. She lets out a choked sob.

He seemed so real.

Then Faraday stumbles his way next to her, and says, "Wasn't nothing personal."

"What, you did this?" she asks, turning towards him, feeling her eyes burn with something more than tears, something that makes Faraday step back.

"No! I was helping Goodnight talk to Sam Chisolm over there and get us in. I'm just saying. Wasn't personal. He was just defending them."

"He? Who?" Emma guesses Faraday's talking about whoever showed her that false version of Matthew, worse than a ghost. At least ghosts are real.

"Emma, we need to go. We need to talk to them, you can't be all upset."

"He was my husband!" she yells, voice ragged. "I'll be as upset as I want to be!"

"Okay, okay. But we got here. We're where we're supposed to be."

Emma takes some deep breaths, wipes away her tears. "Who did that?" She'll kill him.

“Let's just go to the cabin, Emma. You're tired, we're all tired, but at least we can talk now."

Emma turns to the cabin and is faced with two men on the front porch this time, neither of them shrouded in shadows anymore. They're both brown-skinned. One must be Mexican, and one, she notes with a shudder, is an Indian. They're not looking at her, though, they're looking at Faraday, who, for all his talk about going to the cabin, can't seem to move at all.

When she looks at him, she could swear there's tears in his eyes. "Hey," he says, the words just barely a whisper on his lips, and the Mexican one takes a step back like he's been pushed and grabs the Indian by the shoulder, muttering something to him and making to pull him back inside.

The Indian goes with him without complaint, but he does look over his shoulder one more time at Faraday, who looks gutted. When he finally does turn away, Emma sees his dark eyes flash the color of polished green glass.

She starts forward, but Faraday grabs her arm, pulling away quickly when she heats herself up just enough to hurt. "Don't go in there attacking people, won't do us any good. It wasn't personal."

"It was Matthew," she whispers, walking towards the cabin at a slower pace now. "That's always personal."

"Just control yourself."

She laughs bitterly. "I always do."

They’re finally at the doorway.

They walk through.

She sees the man who did this to her, and the second she does, she doesn't control herself. "Monster," she spits at him. "Who do you think you are?"

He gives her a blank, disinterested look, and she feels another wave of rage. Her hands heat up, and she readies herself to lunge.

She doesn’t; not because she doesn't want to, but before she can take another step, she feels a hand on her shoulder and then a grinding pressure like someone’s pressing a brick hard against her bones, and she lets out a choked sound of pain and pulls away from whoever touched her, thoroughly distracted, swinging her head in the general direction of the pain.

It’s the Mexican, his eyes narrowed and his lip curled, and he says, “Stay away from him. That was nothing. I can do worse, we can both do much, much worse.”

She sets her jaw and doesn’t respond.

She doesn’t want to show she’s afraid.

"Vasquez," Sam Chisolm says, voice commanding but quiet enough that Vasquez has to look away from Emma to hear, "Jack's pretty cut up. He'll need you."

"Yes," Vasquez says. "Red Harvest, come help.”

Red Harvest must be the Indian, because he follows Vasquez when he leaves the room.

Sam takes a deep breath, and then gestures stiffly to the table. Billy and Goodnight both sit down just as Sam does, and Emma and Faraday follow. “How'd you find us, Goody?" Sam asks.

"We looked for you,” Goodnight responds lightly.

"And why?"

"Am I not allowed to miss my old friend?"

A pained look passes over Chisolm’s face for a moment, and then it's smooth as stone again. "Of course you are. But you're not here to see an old friend. Not with them in tow."

"Nothing could ever get past you,” Goodnight says with a chuckle. “You'll have to ask Miss Emma over here why we've decided to come along."

Goodnight makes a grand, sweeping motion in Emma’s direction, and she tries to hold her head high and says, “Bartholomew Bogue killed my husband and destroyed my town, took my people. I want to bring him down.”

In that moment, Chisolm’s eyes spark with interest. "I think we'll all want to hear this. For now, I suggest we get ourselves cleaned up. You look worse for wear," he directs at Billy, who’s been bleeding quietly by the wall. “But I reckon Vasquez can get you healed in no time."

Billy raises his eyebrows. "He can?"

"He can do amazing things,” Faraday chimes in, a little strain in his voice.

Chisolm gives Faraday an odd look, but nods his agreement. “Just go into the next room,” he says. “Where he’s fixing Horne up. Tell him Sam sent you.”

Billy nods and is out of the room before Emma even notices he’s gone. Goodnight follows, and then it’s just Emma and Sam Chisolm and Faraday in the dining room. Emma swears the cabin didn’t look nearly as big from the outside, but without everyone in the room, it seems huge to her, even with the kitchen to the side, pots and pans and jars all over.

“Interesting, what you can do,” Faraday offers from where he’s sitting. He’s already put his feet up on the table.

Chisolm shrugs. “I’d say so, yes. Interesting what _you_ can do, too. I didn’t think any psychic could get through my defenses like that.”

Faraday smirks halfheartedly. “Well, I’m not just any psychic. Besides, I had Robicheaux’s help.”

“You were the one with the shadows, I’d wager,” Emma cuts in, and Chisolm nods.

“You’ve come quite a ways for us,” Chisolm says.

“I was told you could do incredible things. I need some more incredible things on my side.”

“Well, if what you’re looking for is to bring down Bogue, I can’t say you’ve come to the wrong place. We’ve been making our plans for a while now.”

“So we can work together,” Emma says. “You can help.”

The others really did make the right choice.

“You oughta expect more from us, Emma,” Faraday says dryly.

Maybe he’s right.

“I am most of the time. Hard not to be.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Shut your mouth, Faraday, and get out of my head.”

Faraday chuckles, and goes back to inspecting his fingernails. She figures he’s reading the place. He winces, and then swallows hard before asking, “The others, their minds…” For once, he seems at a loss for words, but Chisolm just sighs.

“There’s a reason we haven’t gone for Bogue yet. They’ve only…” He looks over at Emma, and then locks eyes with Faraday. Faraday’s eyes glint gold, and then the two of them have some kind of silent conversation. Emma, annoyed, tries not to think on it too much. She’ll ask Faraday later and hope for at least half an answer.

Faraday breaks eye contact, finally, to run a hand over his face. “Shit,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t what I…”

“I believe you,” Chisolm says shortly, and Emma, fed up, cuts back in.

“Are they ready yet?” she snaps.

“They were injured, Miss Cullen,” Chisolm responds.

Emma sighs. “Mrs. Cullen.”

“Mrs. Cullen. Maybe we ought to rest before getting into this.”

“No!” Emma says, louder than she meant to, which only gets a raised eyebrow from Chisolm. “You need to hear this _now,_ we don’t have much time.”

“Don’t have much time for what?”

“I don’t want Bogue to be…destroying lives for one _second_ longer than he has to be.”

Chisolm’s lips quirk upwards for a second. “Well, then. I wish Vasquez’s vision could’ve understood that the fire in you wasn’t for us.”

“I was wondering if he’d had one of those,” Faraday says, and Emma is taken aback.

“Vision? I thought he…hurts. Or heals.”

“He’s got the second sight, though it ain’t always as easy to interpret as we’d like. We knew someone was coming for us, didn’t know they were on our side.”

They really are incredible. Emma’s never even realized there were actually seers in this world.

After a few awkward moments, Faraday mutters, “Brace yourself,” and Emma still starts as a mountain lion wanders into the room, not a scratch on him.

Chisolm doesn’t blink. “Horne, Mrs. Cullen here wants to have some conversation about Bartholomew Bogue. Can’t wait. I imagine we’ll all want to be there for that, will you get the others?”

The big cat inclines his head and then walks out of the room again. It’s a few minutes before the others come back in, Billy with his shirt half undone but also without a scratch on him as far as she can see, and not even any bandages, Goodnight looking a little pale, and then Vasquez and Red Harvest, who place themselves next to the doorway, eyeing them all suspiciously. The mountain lion—Jack—goes to stand next to Chisolm while Billy and Goodnight take a seat, though they keep their chairs a ways from the table.

“Everyone’s tired,” Faraday says. “Make it quick.”

“Shut up,” Emma snaps, but she takes it to heart. She only needs a little time before they can all rest. “It’s Bartholomew Bogue. He destroyed my town, took all the gifted people there except me, and killed the ones that weren’t, including my husband. I want my people back, I want Bogue dead, I want him destroyed just like he destroyed my town, and I hear you want him dead too. You want to take everything he has, just like I do.”

There’s silence, and Emma takes a deep breath. She feels dizzy and sore, but she’s still standing, and that’s what’s important.

“Good of y’all to agree,” Faraday says grandly, and Emma looks right at Chisolm, hoping that Faraday’s being serious. Chisolm nods.

“We’ve already been getting ready to go for Bogue. The boys just needed some time.”

“Looks like it’s time,” Faraday says. “Ain’t it?”

“We will talk about it later,” Vasquez announces. “For now we rest.”

“Vasquez is right,” Chisolm says. “We can’t make a plan on no sleep.”

“But we _will_ make a plan?” Emma pushes, pure hope finally flaring in her chest for the first time in a very long time. “There’s already a plan?”

“Yes, and I’m sure you’ll have some things to say about it too, Mrs. Cullen, but you’re dead on your feet.”

“I am not,” Emma says, bristling and then pushing at Faraday when he snorts.

“Getting started right now won’t do any good. We need to get everything sorted before we can even choose our first step.” Chisolm’s voice is commanding enough that even Emma stands down.

“Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow we’ll start,” she insists, and he nods.

They can spare a night.

Vasquez and Red Harvest walk away first, Faraday craning his neck to get a look at them, and they’re followed by everyone else except Faraday and Emma, gone as quickly as they came.

Faraday himself just looks tired and a little sad, and he lets out a heaving sigh as he stands up. “Get some sleep.”

Emma isn’t too excited about the idea, especially around all these strangers, but she is tired.

“There’s not gonna be much rest after tonight,” Faraday points out. “Whatever happens.”

That’s fair enough, and Emma nods in agreement and finally leaves the dining room, which seems much, much bigger without everyone crowded in it. She’s not sure how many rooms there are, where she might sleep. No one’s told her, and she’s not the mind reader here. She goes back to the dining room to ask Faraday, a little reluctantly, but he’s disappeared, and she sighs. She’ll find some place to curl up, then.

She’s tired enough that it shouldn’t be too hard to get to sleep, uncomfortable as it may be, and it can’t be more uncomfortable than sleeping on an outcropping.

She wanders down the hall. There are a couple rooms here and there, but the doors are closed and she’s not sure whether any are empty.

Eventually, once she gets to the ladder that leads up to whatever’s upstairs, likely more rooms because this place is much, much bigger than she thought, she finally opens a door and is greeted by a room that is empty of furniture but otherwise occupied, with Red Harvest curled up in the middle under a blue knit blanket and against a huge gray wolf, head pillowed on the beast’s gray flank.

Emma feels her heart jump before realizing that the creature must be Horne. Soon Emma notes, briefly and then with bafflement, that snowflakes are melting in Horne’s gray fur and Red Harvest’s short black hair. She looks up at the winter night sky where the gentle snowfall is coming from, and it throws her off entirely before she realizes that she can’t touch or feel the snow.

That she’s inside, and the dark sky above her is trapped in this room, as real as the Matthew she saw not long ago.

Emma feels a cold thrill of fear, and leaves the room before she can feel anything more.

She wonders what exactly Red Harvest is dreaming about, whether it’s just what she saw or something more, and doesn’t think she’ll ever ask. He is dangerous in every way, and Emma knows better than to mess with men like him.

“We’re all dangerous,” Faraday tells her when she steps outside into the real world. He’s there on the porch, sitting on one of the front steps.  

“He looked into my head and he used my husband against me,” Emma says tightly. “He _made_ him.”

“It only looks like it. You can’t feel what he makes, you can’t touch it, you know that…Just ‘cause you’re awake when you see ‘em don’t mean they ain’t dreams.”

“They seem real enough,” she whispers with an ache in her heart. Her Matthew looked just like himself, exactly as he did just moments before he died and her world burned to ashes.

Before he died, he was trying to defend them all. She tried to hold him back, but he just wasn’t that kind of man. He was stupid, she thinks bitterly. He was stupid and she would give anything to see him again, or at least she thought she would.

“Red was just defending himself like the others. Ain’t personal. The dreams are just a good way to get people out before they get in.”

She knows that, of course. In her mind, she knows that just fine. In her heart, she hates that man for showing her what she’ll never have again. She wishes she’d gotten the chance to hurt the Comanche, that the Mexican hadn’t gotten in between them.

“They have names,” Faraday says idly. “You know that.”

She doesn’t want them to have names. She just wants them to fight.

“They ain’t your attack dogs,” Faraday says, now with an edge. “And if you treat them like that, if you think of them like that, I won’t get in the middle when one of them kills you.”

He’s dead serious, and Emma, a bit shaken, just nods.

It’s true—Bogue uses people like them, and she’s looking to do the same. She has to treat them as the humans they are.

“Red Harvest, Vasquez…are they the people you lost to Bogue?” Emma asks, because she can’t help but wonder, all things considered.

Faraday swallows. “I lost everything to Bogue, and it was all my own damn fault.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“You’re a smart lady, Emma.”

She is, and she’s certainly smart enough to know that the answer is yes.

“Well, at least you have them back,” she says tightly, and Faraday laughs bitterly.

“This isn’t having ‘em back. They’ve changed.”

“So?”

“Part of that change is they hate me now.”

Considering what she’s seen, Emma’s thinking that hate may be a strong word.

“You don’t know what you’ve seen,” Faraday snaps. “So talk to someone who cares about what you think, darlin’.”

Emma is impressed with herself for not setting him on fire for that, but she understands anger, so she just walks back inside and finally finds a living room with a couch in it, and that’s where she lies down and finally sleeps.


	2. Seeing You

When Emma wakes up, she can smell something cooking. It makes her stomach turn, but food means that someone’s awake, and they can talk. Emma needs a real plan to follow, not just the half-baked ones in her head, and she’s not too proud to admit that she doesn’t quite know what she’s doing. She just knows what she wants.

The dining room is crowded again, and she’s a little embarrassed at the idea that she was the last to wake up; it makes her feel almost exposed.

Breakfast isn’t much, just porridge and some cornbread. A huge man with a beard who she’s never seen and who she assumes must be Horne pushes some at her and she takes it out of politeness even though she’s not hungry. She has to eat anyhow, has to keep her strength up.

The silence is tense, and the way it’s broken up by little conversations between some of them—Billy and Goodnight, Red Harvest and Vasquez, Chisolm and Horne—just makes the meal tenser, especially since they’re all speaking so quietly that Emma can only make out a word or two here and there. She tries to tune it out after a while, until everyone seems close to being done with their food, barring Red Harvest, who’s eaten maybe half of his meal, something that Emma’s pretty sure is the subject of his and Vasquez’s conversation.

Emma says, “We should talk.”

Chisolm says, “Ready when you are, Mrs. Cullen.”

Then all eyes are on her. “I believe I explained most of it last night,” she says stiffly. “The basics. I need help bringing down Bartholomew Bogue. Not just him, his entire…” she looks for a word that can describe the pull Bogue has, and is thankful when Goodnight mutters what must be a fitting word at her. “…his empire.”

“So we’re still in agreement on that,” Chisolm says, and Emma nods. “We just wanted to kill him, but we can wait a little longer, hit a few more places. Look, we’ve already been tracking Bogue. Horne here in particular, he’s been finding places Bogue controls. His businesses.”

“Where the people he steals goes?” Emma asks with some excitement, and Sam nods. “Good! We can track my people.” She’s already failed them once, she has to work as fast as she can to try and make up for it.

“Well, it’s something to work towards,” Chisolm agrees. “But Bogue’s taken a lot of people. We might not find yours.”

“It hasn’t been long,” Emma protests. “If Horne found places Bogue controls, he can find places that have new prisoners.”

“We already have targets chosen,” Vasquez cuts in. “We are not going to change them for her.”

Emma turns to him, gritting her teeth and taking a deep breath so as not to lose her temper. “I’m sorry?”

“Vasquez,” Chisolm says softly. “What are you talking about?”

Vasquez looks confused. “What do you mean what am I talking about? The mine in Kansas, the circus in Colorado, the barracks in Wyoming.” He swallows heavily. “The _den._ The den in…well, the other places will lead us to it. We know where they are, they are chosen…” He trails off. “Did I not tell you? It’s on the map. I put it on the map.”

Horne shakes his head, taking a step towards Vasquez. “There are plenty places marked on the map, not just three.”

“There’s a map?” Emma cuts in, just as confused as everybody else.

“This is a circus in itself,” Goodnight mutters, and Billy nods in agreement.

“Yes, there’s a map,” Chisolm says. “I was going to show it to you. From there we could choose our first targets.”

“We know our first target and our last. It starts with the mine, ends with the den, it always ended with the den. We want to end Bogue, that ends Bogue. With those places, _those_ places, that is how. It has nothing to do with her people.”

“Maybe it does,” Red Harvest says, and Chisolm, who was about to speak, cuts himself off. “You saw,” Red Harvest gestures towards Emma. “Like how you saw Joshua. And now we know they were meant to be here for what we are doing. She is looking for strangers, maybe that is why those places and people you saw are at the end of the branches. Maybe she’s meant to lead us to her strangers.”

Vasquez pauses, and then, like he’s had some kind of revelation, breathes out, _“Oh._ The barracks, they were obvious. They were the best place to lead us to the den and Bogue, but the mine and the circus, they were so much more specific, and then the rest of what I saw…” He looks up at Emma with recognition in his eyes, and she nearly steps back. “My visions, they’ve shown me things I could not understand, and it’s because of you. We don’t just need you—we need to find what you are looking for.”

Emma doesn’t know how to ask what the hell he’s talking about without sounding stupid, but Goodnight doesn’t have the same worries. “What the hell are you talking about? Sam, what the hell is he talking about?”

“Looks like Vasquez had some visions he didn’t tell me about,” Sam says.

“Yes I did,” Vasquez says.

“Not yet,” Faraday chimes in as if he can’t help himself.

“Ah, mierda,” Vasquez mutters, hunching his shoulders. “I…Sam, I thought I had said. I have seen where we are meant to go, I have _found_ where we are meant to go. Over time, I have seen this mission. Not the den, he has it hidden enough as to be hidden from God’s eyes, but I know we will find what it is we need to kill everything Bogue is in these places. And I think now I understand something that I did not before—maybe what else she needs to find is something we also need.”

“Fine,” Emma says, loudly enough that all eyes are on her again. “I don’t care if I understand, you don’t either. All I have to believe is that your visions will lead me to _something_ I need, and I can live with that.”

Vasquez smiles, and Emma feels more than a little uncomfortable, but she just nods awkwardly at him.

“Let’s get the map out,” Sam announces, and any spell that’s fallen over the room is broken as they get down to business.

It’s surprisingly easy to work together. Emma doesn’t think too much about the others, too caught up in her own mind, but they’re not bad people.

Vasquez points out the places he’d mentioned, and insists on going to each in order. “I am the one who sees the future,” he points out, and no one can argue with that.

So the mine in Kansas it is, and even after the others decide to stop working on it, Emma stays in the kitchen, staring at the map. The whole rest of the day is dragging out in front of her, and she can’t really even bring herself to move. She’s been so full of frantic energy, and now after all this commotion she’s been brought down completely, the ache in her chest impossible to bear. She doesn’t know how she’s doing it. She doesn’t know how she’s surviving at all, how she’ll live when she’s done with this, when she has nothing left.

Maybe she’s meant to die doing this. Take the righteous path all the way to Heaven. All the way back to Matthew, it all leads back to Matthew. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to rest again without him, and she feels him with her anyway, the deep injustice of what happened to him. He can’t have died for nothing, Emma will not let him have died for nothing, it’s not fair, she can’t have lost him just to lose him, even though she knows that that’s how death works.

It’s senseless.

It’s funny, she’s doing all this because she’s without Matthew, but she still feels like without Matthew she can’t do much of anything at all.

Her mind drifts to that moment outside the cabin when she saw him, the joy that shot through her, the relief. She wants that again, just for a moment, and hates Red Harvest for tearing him away all over again, but she wonders if it would hurt less if she knew he’d go away, if she knew he wasn’t real.

She tries to push the idea away, given that she doesn’t even want to talk to that monster, let alone ask him for a favor, but it’s hard. These days, the only easy thing is anger, and it’s still anger she feels when she runs into Red Harvest later, that and maybe a little desperation.

It seems like he’s mostly Vasquez’s shadow, but Vasquez and Faraday are talking on the porch, or maybe arguing, though their voices aren’t raised, and Emma finds Red Harvest in the living room, alone for once.

He’s sitting against the wall, dragging his fingers down the empty air and making colors, white and red and black trailing down the empty space in front of him like paint. He doesn’t seem to notice her, but she suspects he does, just because his eyes go pure green again, as if he doesn’t want her to see what they really look like. She wants to walk away and into the room Horne pointed her towards earlier today, but instead she asks, “Can we talk?”

He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t acknowledge her at all, and she feels a surge of anger. “Don’t ignore me.”

He lets out a little sigh. “What?”

“You showed me Matthew.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “He was on your mind.”

She lets out a choked laugh. “You could say that.”

“I did.”

She snorts. “Fine. I want to see him.”

Red Harvest’s eyes flicker, a shimmer going across them like a rock skipping through a lake, and he whispers something to himself in what must be Comanche, looking away from her. He twists his hand in a circular motion, and a globe appears in his hand, what looks like a room draped in red and purple velvet, and then the image becomes a circus tent. Red Harvest hums under his breath, a tune Emma can’t place, and then he closes his fist and the image is gone.

Impatient and a little more desperate than she’d like, Emma says, “You owe me.”

He looks up at her, green eyes blank and glassy and still. “Sh,” he says harshly, and she’s about to snap when from behind her—

“Emma.”

She swings around, and there he is, looking just like he did the day he died. “Matthew,” she says, all the anger leaking out of her. “Hi.”

He smiles, and it’s so familiar it makes her weak at the knees just like it did back when they were younger. Back when they first met, but they were only children then. “Hi.”

For a moment, through the welcome relaxation, Emma tells herself that this isn’t her Matthew, and then she pushes the thought down and lets go. She was always best at letting go with him.

Emma’s always been reserved, but with Matthew it wasn’t like that. He was so happy and charming and kind. The other children were always afraid of her, they knew what she could do—hell, even the adults were afraid of her, but Matthew just thought it was special and wonderful and beautiful.He thought she was beautiful not in spite of her gift but because of it. Because of her power.

“It’s a great deal, the two of us,” Matthew would joke. “I’ll take care of you, and if need be, you can always protect me.”

Emma wants to reach out for Matthew, but she knows she can’t touch him, and so she doesn’t dare. She doesn’t want to break the spell.

“I’m going to look for the others,” she tells him.

“The other townspeople?”

“I’ve met people who can help.”

“Who?”

“Powerful people. As powerful as me.”

Matthew smiles. “I can’t imagine anyone as powerful as you.”

Emma smiles back helplessly. “Well, I have them with me now, and we’re going to get Bogue, I promise. I’ll finish what you started.”

Matthew furrows his brow. “What did I start?”

Emma laughs a little, thin and just this side of bitter. “Well, you certainly started my wanting to kill Bogue. It’s what you would’ve wanted.”

“And to save the others,” he reminds her, and she nods. Of course, that too. That’s what he would’ve wanted most of all.

“The ones left,” she whispers, and then, “you’re so real.”

Matthew grins. “Of course I am.”

“I love you,” she says. “I didn’t tell you that enough.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know.”

“We’re going to a mine,” she says. “It’s Bogue’s. One of three targets that’ll finally lead us to him because the bastard hides himself so well, and our seer thinks that maybe they’re important because of me too. That maybe he’s seeing places where the others are most likely to be.”

Matthew frowns and then, always brutally, innocently practical and inquisitive, “But what if they’re not?”

Emma’s breath catches, because she knows that she could be more than a little wrong, given that she didn’t even entirely understand anything Vasquez said earlier, but she shakes her head, both to banish the thought that they won’t be there and the thought that she doesn’t really care that much if she can get to Bogue. “Then they still have to be somewhere, and I’ll find them. I’ll find them as soon as possible.”

 _Besides, I can’t wait to burn Bogue alive._ She doesn’t say that because she knows it would upset her Matthew. He never liked violent talk, even though he was willing to fight for her. She remembers that moment when they were both thirteen years old and he punched Harry Dunbar in the face because Harry called her unnatural. That was the moment that Emma knew she really was in love with him, that she really was going to marry him, it wasn’t just talk.

He was willing to fight for her, he was willing to fight for Rose Creek. He was willing to fight Bogue.

Harry beat him to a pulp. Emma had to intervene, and after that she didn’t go to school anymore, and her father taught her himself. He did a good job, but Emma was always bright.

She finished Matthew’s fight then, she’ll finish it now.

Matthew smiles gently, and he’s so handsome. He’s so real. Emma desperately wants to reach out to him, so she turns away instead, swallows hard.

“Make him go,” she says to Red Harvest, who is still sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, looking entirely serene. The wave of envy she feels over that is enough to send her to Hell. She wishes she could be as emotionless as he is.

There’s no sign that Red Harvest even heard what she said, except when she looks back, Matthew isn’t there.

“I just miss him,” she says to the room in general, or maybe to Red Harvest.

She looks at him, forces herself to, and his gaze is even and through the green in his eyes Emma sees that he understands exactly how much she’s not saying.

“You’re not a monster,” she tells him, the words sudden and passionate, as if she’s defending him against herself.

“I know,” he says, and she imagines giving him a smile or saying thank you, but she doesn’t. She just nods at him and leaves the room, goes to the one she’s staying in now after Chisolm realized she hadn’t known where to go last night.

She sits on her bed and weeps.

She’s still young, and it overwhelms her, because it means she may have years and years still in front of her, years and years without Matthew.

Once she asked Matthew, a little meanly, in the middle of an argument over something silly that she can’t remember anymore, what he’d do if she died. He’d gone silent, and then moved closer to her because they were both standing, at odds, and taken her hand. He had looked deep into her eyes—he had the prettiest eyes—and said, “I can’t imagine.”

She’d softened, forgotten what they were arguing about. Kissed him.

She’ll never kiss him again.

 

+

 

The days go by, and other than her total focus on what they’re going to do, on their three step plan and the plans within those, she can’t really focus on anything else. It’s all a fog with brief intrusions from the others.

She only eats when she starts getting dizzy, spends all the time that she’s not planning sleeping. She can suddenly sleep a lot. She dreams of Rose Creek, dreams of Matthew, and wants what she can’t have.

At least she has it in her sleep.

“You might as well be a ghost,” Faraday tells her one day as she’s heading back to her room, and she shrugs.

Might as well.

Another day, Vasquez stops her and looks into her eyes so deeply that she takes a step back, because the look in his own eyes is distant and yet still fixed, as if he’s looking at her but seeing something else too, something no one should be able to see. “We will find what you’re looking for,” he says. “No la primera vez, pero pronto. Estás loca con dolor. Yo entiendo. Si entiendo algo, es ser loco.”

She is entirely taken aback. “What?”

Vasquez furrows his brow as though he can’t figure out what it is he’s said that’s confused her. “You heard me,” he says, and then he’s just gone, leaving Emma standing there. Somehow, beyond the confusion, she feels reassured.

Emma is driven and exhausted and restless and full of hope. It’s all she is right now, hope and pain and want.

Then it’s time, and it’s because it’s time that she wakes from a fading dream and goes to find Red Harvest, the night right before they they put their plan in motion after—however long it’s been. She hopes he’s not with any of the others. She hasn’t been able to ask him to give her Matthew in these weeks because of that, and maybe because of a little fear.

She’s lucky, though. She finds him alone, and he looks up at her with eyes a solid jade green, and he says, “You want to see him.”

“Yes,” she says breathlessly, ready to beg. She has to see him, she has to talk to him. It’s the night before, and she always talked to her Matthew before doing important things.

She doesn’t have to beg. Red Harvest just walks over to her room and lets himself in. It’s terribly inappropriate to have a strange man in the room she sleeps in, but she doesn’t care, even when she closes the door behind her and sees that he’s sitting cross-legged on the bed.

She almost says something, though she has no idea what she’d say, maybe _thank you_ or some nonsense like that, and he takes some deep, slow breaths and then rolls his head back to look at the ceiling like someone else may look at the stars. His face goes blank, peaceful.

He’s so calm all the time, so distant and unbothered, that it makes him beautiful, though his eyes show that he’s got something to him, awareness, intelligence, and that’s beautiful too. Sometimes she watches him when no one’s looking, and she watches him now, so intently that she doesn’t even notice that what she has left of Matthew has appeared behind her until he says, “Emma.”

She turns around to look at him, her attention torn from Red Harvest immediately, and she smiles. He looks just like he always did. Emma wonders how Red Harvest does it, how he makes Matthew look so real when Emma herself sometimes worries she’s forgetting his face. She wonders if it’s as effortless for him to do this as it seems to be, as it is for her to use her powers day to day. It seems to be, and she’s thankful for it. It makes everything so easy.

She says, “We’re heading out tomorrow. Next time we see each other, I suppose I’ll be far from here.”

“Good luck,” Matthew tells her with a grin. “Though I’ll bet you don’t need it.”

She laughs. He had so much faith in her. “I think I probably do. We all do. But…we’ll manage, and hopefully I’ll find some of the others, even all of them.”

Those who are left. Unless they’re dead, of course, but Emma can’t let herself think that. She blinks rapidly, suddenly teary, and Matthew frowns.

“What’s wrong?” He hated to see her cry. It was such a rarity to him, too, even though she was crying the first time they ever really met, past just seeing each other around town because at seven they’d both lived there most of their lives.

 _Don’t cry,_ he’d said, stepping delicately into the little space between huge oak trees that she’d found so that she could suffer without other people’s judgmental, pitying, disgusted eyes on her.

 _I can cry if I want,_ she’d tried to snap through her sobs.

_But why?_

Because of the burning, because of the wariness from most of the other townspeople, even the other gifted ones, from the gaze of her own mother who looked at her like she was diseased.

Because everything hurt.

She didn’t say any of that, just turned back to her pain until her Matthew took her hand and she looked at him in confusion because no one ever wanted to touch her.

Her Matthew’s eyes were so kind, his hopeful little smile so sweet, his touch so cool and gentle, that Emma’s shaking started to calm, that she started to breathe again.

He said, _Please don’t cry,_ as if she’d stop if he was polite about it, and Emma was just so surprised by it all that she did, and then he was at her side so often and it was so much easier to be calm with him there, and she mostly didn’t cry at all after that, and if she did even Matthew’s anxious hovering would make the tears, the pain, cool down.

“Please don’t cry,” Matthew says, and Emma realizes that there are tears dripping down her face.

“You’re not here,” she explains. “That’s what’s wrong.”

“But I am, I am here.”

Emma gives him a sad little smile as her tears, which are no longer a rarity, slow down but don’t stop, but she doesn’t correct him.

He’s realer than her memories, at least. “Something has to come of this,” she says, not really changing the subject. “From the pain. That’s what you always said.”

“You always said it too, Emma,” he points out. “I can’t even remember who said it first.”

“Neither can I. But it doesn’t matter. I’m taking the righteous path, just like you’d want me to.”

 _They’re looking for revenge and we all know it,_ she heard Goodnight say not too long ago as she passed by him and Billy, some little moment in a conversation she didn’t care about. It probably wasn’t even about her, and she didn’t think on it.

(But revenge is a fine thing too.)

Matthew gives her a placid smile and says, “Of course.”

Emma smiles back, and then she whispers, “I’ll be seeing you.”

And he’s gone. She misses him the second he disappears, just like she missed him when she was there, but his almost-presence has let her breathe more easily, even though he’s not real.

“He’s real,” Red Harvest murmurs from the bed. “Real as anything else.”

“Can you read my mind?” Emma asks, his words leading her to suddenly be struck by the idea. Beyond just creating whatever he wants, Red Harvest _must_ be able to read minds in some way to make other people’s desires, and she wonders how far it goes. “Like Faraday can?”

“No,” Red Harvest says, mouth turning down in what Emma thinks might be puzzlement. He tilts his head just a little. “Why?”

“Because I was just thinking of this Matthew not being…” Emma shakes her head. “It’s not important.”

Red Harvest doesn’t push—he never seems to push anything—and instead stands up and drifts towards the exit. He’s almost out the door when she finally says, “Thank you.”

(He doesn’t owe her, at least not anymore.)

He shrugs a shoulder. “It’s what I do,” he says, and he leaves.

Emma sleeps, and she doesn’t dream, and in the morning they go to the town where they left their horses.

The first time they went to that town it was daytime and they sold the horses with a glib promise from Faraday that they’d get them back when they needed them, don’t you worry. Emma should’ve realized that that meant they had to steal them back, but she’d been so agitated that she’d half lost her mind, willing to do anything to just get started on her mission, and hadn’t actually thought of that.

It doesn’t matter much, in the end, because it’s so easy to get the horses back that it’s funny. With Faraday able to tell if anyone’s stirring and even, apparently, put them back to sleep, and Red Harvest and Chisolm cloaking them all, they’re in and out of town in the blink of an eye. Chisolm complains about breaking the law until Goodnight wryly reminds him that he’s gone rogue, is working with an outlaw, and is gunning to commit murder anyway. Chisolm can’t really argue with that.

When they ride off into the sunrise, Red Harvest makes them fade into the landscape until Faraday tells him there’s no one around and he can drop it for now, he’ll tell him if anyone else comes by. (Doesn’t matter who that person may be; Bogue’s got people everywhere, and it’s best to be safe, to stay completely out of sight.)

With Faraday keeping watch and Red Harvest able to shield them, Emma feels secure for the first time in a long time, and glad that as difficult as it may be to conquer their targets, it’s not going to be too hard to get there.

She still feels a little pang of pity when they finally reach a space where they can spend the night as they travel to the mine—after that they’ll go to Sam’s house, he’s supposed to live in Kansas, after all, and he says it’ll be safe, that it’s well out of the way and they can hide it from prying eyes besides—and sees Faraday and Red Harvest.

Faraday nearly falls when he dismounts, patting Jack the horse absentmindedly on the nose when he nudges at Faraday’s shoulder in concern, muttering, “Just need some whiskey and some sleep, Jack, that’s all.”

He throws his blanket on the ground and nearly collapses onto it, and Emma thinks he’s going to pass out before getting to his whiskey, but he still manages to take a few gulps from his flask, falling asleep with it still in his hand.

Red Harvest, for his part, dismounts with grace but stumbles when he takes a step and then stops moving, cocking his head to the side and staring into the distance as if in some kind of stupor. Vasquez walks to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling gently to get him to move to a place where he can lie down, waiting patiently for Red Harvest to fall asleep before he does. Chisolm does too, though Emma can see how restless he is, how restless Vasquez is, for that matter.

It’s Goodnight and Billy who take watch, murmuring to each other in low voices as Horne, in the form of a mountain lion, sleeps in plain sight, or what would be plain sight were there anyone around, and then properly takes over.

Emma forces herself to close her eyes.

She has to sleep to stay strong.

The next day is much the same as the one before, and so is the day after that. It’s not very interesting. All Emma can really do is think. At least she can comfort herself with the fact that Horne’s place in New Mexico isn’t as far from Sam’s house in Kansas as it could be, and Sam’s house isn’t as far from the mine as it could be, and every day they get closer and every night Emma tries to get some rest and every night she dreams of gunshots and Matthew and she wakes up gasping and burning.

The others look at her with pity, but she knows they have nightmares too, she hears Goodnight’s unhinged rambling, she sees Faraday and Vasquez’s quiet arguments and the way Chisolm is tense with anger and pain like she is. She wonders what happened to them sometimes. She knows about the den, that it’s where Bogue keeps his prized _possessions,_ that someone she travels with was there before. Her money’s on Red Harvest and Vasquez.

She still doesn’t ask. She just waits, and one day she smells burning coal in the distance and her heart jumps. For the first time in days, she smiles, and Faraday laughs next to her.

“You look like somethin’ from Hell.”

She, with her flaming hair and her red, red eyes and her sparking fingertips, takes his comment for the compliment that it is.

Emma’s surprised at how easy it is to find the mine, to get within walking distance of it after they leave their horses somewhere safe, but Horne reckoned that it wouldn’t be that easy to get in to the mine proper, not like it’ll be for the circus, where people are actually supposed to just stroll in. Chisolm, for his part, reckoned that what wouldn’t be hard would be getting the prisoners out. _They’re probably just waiting for a chance to leave,_ he said. _And they’re probably there because they’ve got some brute strength at that. Just need a push, some healthy people. I’ll bet anything they’re starved._

Emma’s hoping that Chisolm’s right, and that Horne’s right too, for that matter, because there’s an entire fort built around where the mine and the camp where the prisoners live must be, and there are a couple of guards in front of a huge gate. The gate is locked with the kind of chains that even a relatively especially-strong person wouldn’t be able to open, and she imagines that the miners are kept away from the gate, maybe beaten into submission.

The guards are gifted, from what Emma can see, two huge, bulky men, one with unnaturally bright blue eyes and the other with skin that’s covered in scales.

She wonders what happened to them to make them willing to imprison—enslave—people like them. She doesn’t really want to know. They’ll probably be dead by the end of the night, after all.

Emma and the others, shielded by Red Harvest, make their way across a river that runs black with coal, using Chisolm’s solid shadows as a bridge.

They gather near the river, now within walking distance of the mine, and lay out their plan to take the place out again. Emma’s nearly shaking with excitement.

“Take a breath,” Billy mutters at her, and Emma’s distracted enough that she’s not even offended, she just follows the advice.

Once they find that they’re on the same page and that the sun is starting to set, Horne takes the form of a hummingbird and flutters his way into the dilapidated excuse for a fortress.

Emma and the others wait impatiently for him to get back, and when he does he says, “Most everyone’s in their tents by now. Given that it’s Sunday, they see fit to cut the day a little short. We don’t have to wait for any group to get back.”

Before anyone can say anything, Horne’s a bird again. Once Faraday and Goodnight are in, he’ll cover them.

Faraday says, “Alright, these guards are strong, but they ain’t too bright. Robicheaux, time for us to go up there and you to be a rich bastard who wants a word with Bart Bogue. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Goodnight looks vaguely annoyed, but says, “Not too hard at all, as long as you stay out of my way, manservant.”

Faraday rolls his eyes and then mutters, “Alright, let’s go.”

He and Goodnight start off on foot, clearly trying to look as stately as possible even without their horses, which they just couldn’t afford to put in danger, and by the time the guards catch sight of them, Emma, Chisolm, Vasquez, and Red Harvest are already almost at the mine, Red Harvest shielding them. They crouch in the tall grass near the gate, Billy having fallen far behind to stand in front of the gate and have more room to do what he’s going to do.

Red Harvest hisses something in Comanche, and Chisolm says, almost under his breath, “He’s dropping our illusion, stay down.”

Everyone’s finally in place, and Goodnight’s saying something in a friendly voice when Red Harvest lets Billy’s illusion drop too.

The guards barely have time to even look surprised by his sudden appearance right in front of their eyes before they fall into a stupor. Faraday pulls out his gun and seems to think nothing of shooting the unscaled one between the eyes and slamming the butt of his pistol against the forehead of the scaled one until there’s not much of a head left.

The two bodies fall to the ground, and Faraday and Goodnight follow suit in preparation for Billy’s next move.

He holds his arms out like he’s going to embrace somebody, and the metal chains begin to shake.

Billy clenches his hands into fists, and the chains start to twist until the wooden gate is splintering.

Then Billy puts his arms to his sides, and the gate goes flying, huge pieces of broken wood and some thick chains scattering across the dead grass and landing in the useless river water. In a matter of seconds, some of those chains begin to float as if of their own accord, and Emma stops paying attention as the solid shadows Chisolm was using to shield them from debris fall away. There are screams around her—understandable, given that all the people inside the mine just saw a fourth of the fortress get torn to shreds—and she figures Faraday and Goodnight must’ve already bolted inside.

Now they need to calm the place down, and the ones of them that aren’t already in the mine climb over broken wood to get there. Emma’s bare skin—she’s in men’s clothes today; dresses are unsuitable for battle, she thinks—catches on a sharp nail and tears just above her anklebone,  but she doesn’t feel the pain.

Shadows fall gently over the mine like a second fortress. There’s more yelling, and Emma stands on the debris and, because she can’t think of anything else to do, screams so hard and so loud that she stuns the crowd into silence. Of course, the flames licking at her skin may also do the trick. She clears her throat, coughs, and then says, her voice as loud as it’s ever been, “We’re here to help you! We are going to bring Bartholomew Bogue down, and we are here to free you and ask you to fight with us if you can! We are—”

A commotion breaks out, Faraday scuffling with some guard, grizzly-Horne roaring with discontent, noises that are all starting to confuse her, and Chisolm yells, “Emma, watch—”

Everything goes dark.


	3. Any Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this is a gory chapter.

There’s shouting.

Her eyes flutter and she sees the outline of a monster. It picks her up, she lets it move her, she can’t move, can’t scream.

She is left next to a river. Her head rolls to the side. She is surrounded by broken things.

That’s strange.

Her eyes close again, she fades away.

_She’s not dead. Do something, she’s not dead…Emma, c’mon. Stay alive, stay alive, we need you._

She’s not going to die now, thank you.

_Don’t worry, we can fix her no problem. I’ll close the wound—you, you’re a healer? You make sure there’s nothing wrong with the bone._

Hands on her head—

_She’s got a strong skull, your girl._

_Don’t we know it…is she still bleeding?_

_No, but the wound’s still open, guero—move aside, I’ll close it. Rojito, give me one of your arrows._

There’s blood in her hair.

It’s her blood.

Then it’s not just her blood.

At first whatever’s rubbing at her open wound hurts. Then it doesn’t.

Her head doesn’t hurt anymore at all, it just feels heavy, like it’s full of wool, and her hair is matted and sticky.

_She’ll be out for a while yet. We’ll get her to the house, she’s small._

_Y’know, I didn’t realize she was so small._

There’s nothing and then she’s being laid out on a bed. Someone’s fingers comb through her matted hair, snagging on the tangles. She tries to protest.

Her body aches. Her ankle throbs. She feels like she should mention it, but then she opens her eyes and sees Chisolm standing above her and she mutters, “Did you find them? Did you find any of them?” 

Chisolm says, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Emma whispers. “Come on, no…”

“We think that the people Vasquez saw in his visions, the ones he thought were your people, are actually just men and women that are key to bringing down Bogue. He recognized some of them, and those people turned out to be more than willing to devote their time to bringing Bogue down, saving the people he’s stolen.”

“So Vasquez saw these places because he was being shown leaders in the fight against Bogue. Not my people.”

“Looks like it.”

“But we’ll still find Bogue?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’m okay with that,” Emma murmurs. “I can live with that.”

_The others never cared for you anyway, would never have tried to save you. These people Vasquez’s visions showed, they’ll save them anyway, you don’t have to do it now. They didn’t make Rose Creek home. If they’re still alive, they’ll live._

_You just focus on killing Bogue._

_Is that the righteous path?_

_Don’t pretend that’s what you care about, don’t pretend…_

She dreams in chaotic colors and there’s screaming and she’s jostled by somebody and she opens her eyes.

“Shouldn’t she be getting better? She’s good as new.” Faraday.

“I don’t know, this isn’t supposed to happen.” Vasquez. “But she doesn’t look well. This is not just a hit to the head. She’s sick.”

She smiles a little through cracked lips. “Some mind reader,” she murmurs through the cotton in her mouth. “My skin, it’s my skin, it broke my skin…”

“What?” Vasquez asks, leaning over her, and he puts a hand on her forehead. She’s always burning, though. His eyes widen. “Oh, no. The dirt got inside.”

“My ankle,” she whispers. “My ankle hurts…”

She fades again.

God, she’s never felt so sick.

She’s never had a fever before, as it turns out. She’s always burned, but not like this.

This burn is deeper, it sinks into her skin, it wraps her up, it makes her cold.

Her sweat is cold.

She shivers so hard it hurts. “I don’t get cold,” she tells Chisolm. “Where am I that it’s cold?”

Chisolm says, “You’re in my house in Kansas. It’s not cold.”

“Wrong,” she says. “Wrong, I’m…”

The covers are pulled off of her body. Someone takes her leg, says _there it is,_ and she opens her eyes and sees a knife meeting brown skin, slicing into the crook of an elbow, not even a flinch, fingers dip into the pouring blood, the skin writhes, the wound closes and there’s unbroken skin and it’s slick with new blood.

It’s all over his fingers too, from where he’s dipped them in, and the tall form takes her ankle and the purple and pink and yellow skin is warm and red, unbroken. The wound didn’t bleed much in the first place.

She falls asleep.

She wakes up and there’s more people in her room now, shadows, voices all mixing together. Strangers, monsters, people, they’re all the same. She wants to scream, wants to kick them out. What are they doing?

Why is she in this room?

Where is she?

“Matthew,” she says. “Matthew, help me. Matthew, damn it, where _are_ you?”

She’s angry now. “Where’d you take him? He needs me.” She sits up, gets out of the bed she’s trapped in, stumbles. Now there’s hands on her. She snarls. “How dare you touch me? I’m a married woman…” Her words trail off, and she falls to the floor, suddenly shaking, hot and cold. Her nightgown is sticking to her body and it’s very uncomfortable.

When did she change her clothes?

How long has it been?

_They didn’t find them, but that’s alright, they’ll find people who can find them, what you need to find is Bogue, you need to find him, that’s how you’ll find Matthew…_

_Where’s Matthew?_

She’s lifted onto the bed, and someone says, “Vasquez, she’s gonna die.”

“I told you closing the wound would not do anything.”

“Do you think…?”

“I don’t know. The wound is in her blood, I have only ever healed illness, but…it cannot hurt, can it?”

_They’ll live._

_Why try if you don’t have to?_

_Maybe you’ll never see them again. Not much of a loss._

_What about Teddy? He’s your friend, and he must be somewhere, why can’t you make sure he’s saved? Wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t that what came first?_

_Wasn’t that the right thing?_

_You couldn’t protect them in the first place…_

_There are more important things to do. More important things, like not dying, I can’t die now, can’t die now. I don’t want to see Matthew again without having done right by him._

Someone is holding a cup to her lips. It must be water. She’s thirsty, she drinks—it’s not water. It’s thicker than that.

Soup?

It tastes strange. It’s warm going down her throat. She doesn’t try to push it away. She’s too tired.

She just drinks, and then it’s gone and the cup is taken from her lips and someone’s hand is on her shoulder and she hears, “We’ll see if it worked soon enough.”

There’s still some soup smeared on her mouth. Someone wipes it away. She cracks her eyes open just enough to see pale fingers come away from her mouth with blood smeared on them, red and warm.

Her sleep is dreamless, uninterrupted. Peaceful.

When she wakes up, she’s not cold, and the burning doesn’t hurt. She feels fine. The sun is shining through the curtains, and she takes a deep breath. Nothing hurts.

“Your fever broke,” Faraday says as she sits up. “You’re good as new.”

“How?” she asks.

“Medicine,” he says.

“I remember. What kind of medicine was that?”

Faraday shrugs. “Miracle stuff. Vasquez can do amazing things.”

Emma frowns. Vasquez. Blood in her hair. Sliced skin writhing, blood on her ankle, medicine going down her throat, warm and—

“Oh, God,” she whispers. “Oh, God.”

Faraday winces. “You got it, didn’t you?”

She leans over the side of the bed and vomits.

But she thanks Vasquez later. He did save her life, after all.

Vasquez shrugs, gives her a smile. “It didn’t take much. Now you just get stronger. When you do,” and here he smiles, just this side of vicious, “we can go to the circus.”

 

+

 

Emma’s never been to a circus or carnival, but she’s always known that there were gifted people there. It’s a way to make money, she supposes, but with Bogue’s carnivals Horne assures them that there’s plenty of people to save.

“Do you know what they’re like?” Emma asks Faraday, curious, because considering how jittery he’s been lately, she thinks he might. She thinks that the circus might even be the key to the story he won’t tell.

She’s still in bed anyway, eating everything she can get her hands on to get her strength back up before they head out in a couple days, though she feels right as rain, and these days she wants to know a little more about what she’s doing, about what the others have done, and maybe this time someone will answer. Faraday’s said he trusts her before, and now that she trusts him, she believes it.

Faraday’s in a chair next to her, feet on her bed, shoes and all, shuffling through a pack of cards, and when he hears her question—the one she asked out loud and the real one—he stops cold. For a moment, she doesn’t think he’s going to answer anything at all, and then he says, “I might as well tell someone, long as you keep it a secret that you know.”

“I will.” _Tell me about the circus, the den, tell me about them, I want to know and I haven’t wanted to know things like this in so long..._

“After a while even the people who thought it was a good deal don’t wanna be there,” Faraday tells her with the air of a man who’s about to spin a yarn, Lord knows if any of it’ll be true. “I don’t have any reason to lie, do I?” He has plenty of reasons to lie. “Shut up. I thought I wanted to be there. I could make some money, do some card tricks, pretend to see the dead, read some people’s ages, that’s all. I didn’t bring up how strong I am, ‘cause why would I? I imagine you know it’s better to hide your light than show it off. Better to let people underestimate you.”

“Wait, you looked for a job there?”

“I didn’t have any money,” Faraday snaps. “It looked like a way to make some money and get a roof over my head, a lifetime ago. You wanna hear it or not?”

(He’s alone, and he’s just this side of drunk, and it’s raining, which seems about right. He lost everything at some point, can’t quite remember when.

And then there’s the circus, bright and warm and Josh sees an opportunity, because there’s three things he hasn’t gambled away quite yet:

His life, his flask, and his deck of cards.

By the time he’s out of that circus, he’ll have lost one.)

Emma holds her hands up. Go on.

“I’d heard of those carnivals. Hadn’t really heard of Bogue for what he was, he became a name people knew just a little while after I myself got there. Anyway, there were other performers...”

“Vasquez and Red Harvest?”

Faraday rolls his eyes. “Do you know how stories work? And no. Red Harvest started at the carnivals, but not at mine. And Vasquez ain’t never stepped into one of those places, far as I can tell. Anyhow, it was fine for a second there, but then I found where he kept the freaks, it wasn’t hard to know they didn’t wanna be there. It was usually at the front of their minds. ‘Cept by the time I realized that, I’d already signed a contract, and, far more important than that, I was drunk—you gotta understand that I was always drunk—and I needed a roof over my head and drink to keep me going, so I figured...maybe I’ll help ‘em some day.

“It was a good excuse to stick around. I even tried to help, took out a guard that was beating up on some poor kid, and that’s when they figured out that I wasn’t just some regular old mind reader. I could even read Bogue through the man he always has with him, cloaking his mind from people like me. I tried to talk my way out of the whole thing, I was worried what they might do to me, but instead he just offered me a new job. Help guard a couple of his prized possessions.” Faraday’s expression darkens. “What with his telepath and the way that sorry excuse for a human being thinks and being drunk, I didn’t realize his prized possessions were people.”

(He just wants to leave. It’s awful here, with all the misery of the people around him, people he can’t help, or maybe he doesn’t want to help—look at where it got him. A private meeting with Bart Bogue himself.

Josh pretends he’s not scared, calms himself by reading Bogue. It’s impressive. He’s never met a more selfish man, and he is intimately acquainted with himself.

Bogue’s a cartoon, a person so awful that Josh can’t believe he’s real. He’s all human and there’s not a speck of humanity in him, and somehow he’s got people by his side, gifted people, that aren’t even prisoners like the freaks at the circus. Maybe it’s because he gives them nice lives. Maybe it’s because they’re broken. Josh reckons it’s both.

Bogue says he can guard his prized possessions, get out of the circus and into a better life, the one Josh can see if he digs through the minds of Bogue’s guards. A nice room, a nice bed, good food, all the whiskey he might want, and all he has to do is guard some things.

He agrees.)

_Red Harvest and Vasquez._

“Yeah, that’s where they come in.”

“What did he want you to do to them?” Emma asks, horrified. God, she had thought they were friends once upon a time.

“It’s more complicated than you think,” Faraday says, defensive. “And what he wanted was to make sure they didn’t run. He wanted to be a step ahead of ‘em. They’d tried to run, that was the thing. Vasquez killed more than a few people before I came along, and Bogue knew I could control people’s minds or knock ‘em out if I try hard enough. Joke was on him, of course. Just reading other psychics that strong is a battle, and it just got harder as it went on. ‘Sides, I wasn’t interested in helping keep prisoners.”

He pauses there, swallows. “But I did. By the time I got there, I was surrounded by people who could crush me. Bogue makes gifted zombies in those barracks of his. I like to think that if I’d had more of a choice, I would’ve given up the cushy room, the money, the good whiskey, the second I knew these were people we were talking about. I would’ve helped ‘em escape right off. But I didn’t.”

(This isn’t what he signed up for. He didn’t expect the Mexican, the Indian, both men, both with minds so one of a kind that Josh knew from the second he felt them that they were also psychics. He’s never met a psychic as strong as him before.

He’s told what they do, that he’s their best bet for keeping them from escaping, because they keep trying. He doesn’t explain the part about how just because they’re all psychic doesn’t mean it’s somehow easier for him to read or control them, it’s harder. It would be more than a little stupid to explain it.

Knock them out if you have to, let someone who can control them know if they’re going to break out, keep them docile...

Josh pretends he’s alright with that. He’s told that he should go in the den if it’ll be easier for him to control them like that.

The den is where the real money’s at. He’s told that the Indian started off in the circus before Bogue realized his illusions were worth far more than the entrance fee. Told that the Mexican’s blood heals people, so just bleeding him for a bit can make them hundreds of dollars. They warn that the Mexican can harm people by laying on hands, but he probably won’t. They’ve gotten him out of that habit.

Josh has to learn their names from their minds, because no one else seems to know. Most of their thoughts are in languages he can’t understand, but he can translate anything and everything. It’s a gift. It’s one of the reasons he’s the best guy for this job.

He tries not to look at Refugio and Red Harvest, because he knows they’ll probably kill him at some point.

He makes his peace with it.)

“Took me a while to admit it, but by then I was as much a prisoner as Red and Vasquez. I did try to leave on my own early on, nearly got killed. Broke my goddamn leg. It was the first time Vasquez fixed me up, ‘cause he’d figured out I was just a prisoner too.”

(Josh doesn’t think he can take this anymore. He knows Red Harvest and Refugio by now, and at this point they look at him with curiosity, as if they know things he doesn’t. It makes him uncomfortable. People don’t generally know things he doesn’t.

But Josh can just barely make out that they know that Josh has politely not mentioned their escape plans, politely not mentioned that he’s doing nothing to make them docile, politely not mentioned that Refugio can see the future.

It seems like the kind of thing that Bogue would want to know.

But Josh sees them, he knows what they do to them, he can feel Refugio’s mind just getting sicker and sicker with pain and anger and worry and grief and he can feel Red Harvest’s mind cracking like it’s made of glass a hundred feet thick and someone’s hammering at it all the time. Josh can’t be part of this, not anymore.

He was chosen to be a guard, he can choose to get out, and maybe at some point he’ll come back for them, for Red Harvest and Refugio, though he knows that Bogue’s house has something going on with it, can only really be accessed with exact coordinates or a tearer who can make a hole that you can walk right through to get just about anywhere, and Bogue’s tearers are all devoted to him and where would he find them anyway and—

Josh tells himself he’ll go back for them, but he knows he won’t.

He just wants to leave, and one night he does, or he tries. Turns out there’s some guards right at the door.

One man has scales all over his skin and when he bares his teeth he shows fangs, another has bright blue eyes that nature doesn’t give people without gifts, and Josh says, “I quit.”

And the man with scales tells him, “You can’t.”

Josh already knew that, didn’t he? That’s why he tried to sneak out.

Desperately, as the guards close in on him, he tries to take them over, tries to get them into a stupor. He could if he weren’t so drunk, why the hell did he get drunk? and there’s too many of them and their minds are starting to overwhelm him anyway with him so scattered and he can’t do this on his own.

He almost doesn’t remember getting beaten into the ground, but he’s certainly there for it, the pain exploding all over his body, this constant feeling like he’s getting struck by lightning, burned by it, screaming full-throated when someone stomps his leg and he catches sight of it, the bone sticking out, slick with blood, and that’s where he passes out, because hell if that’s not disgusting.

“He’s the one who can control them,” someone says somewhere that he isn’t. “We probably still need him. We’ve probably kept him from trying to leave again...y’know, clarified things. Boss ain’t gonna be happy if we just let him die, he’s valuable.”

“Throw him in with the freaks. See if they wanna save him.”

“Those things? They’re monsters, they ain’t gonna do anything.”

“Well, at least we’ll have tried.”

Josh feels himself get dragged up some stairs—very unpleasant, extremely fucking unpleasant, he’s covered in bruises, he’s bleeding, his nose is probably broken, his leg is definitely broken, and he’s relieved when they finally drag him into a room and leave him there. If he dies, he dies, he’s not particularly bothered by it.

He looks up at the ceiling. His eyes are slits, they’re nearly swollen shut, and this is a ceiling he knows very well and here’s a face he knows very well above him and Refugio says, horror in his voice, “What happened?”

“He tried to escape,” one of the guards says, and Josh can practically see him shrug. “We figured we’d put him in here if you felt like saving him.”

“How kind,” Refugio says.

“We’ll leave you to it,” another guard says, insultingly upbeat, and the door closes, and the door locks, and Josh has just realized that the den door is always locked to keep him in too, not just Refugio and Red Harvest.

“I say save him,” Red Harvest says from wherever he is. “He is as much a prisoner as we are.”

“You’re right,” Refugio says with a sigh. “But we don’t have any sharp things, how am I supposed to...? Where did you get that?”

“I stole it.”

“Of course you did. Alright, you help with the gathering and the applying.”

“Okay.”

And then Josh is watching, from his reclined position, as Refugio takes a knife to his wrists.

Blood pours out, and Josh can’t help but gurgle a protest, because Refugio’s going to kill himself and Josh is not that important. He’s ignored, and he screams through his teeth as he’s dragged backwards to lean against the fainting couch, and then his eyes try their best to widen—at this point he’s in so much pain that his body’s forgotten what it’s like to not be in pain, which, oddly enough, makes it all much less painful—as he sees Red Harvest casually wipe the pouring blood from Refugio’s arm with his hands, leaving his bare hands covered in fresh blood, and Refugio’s skin is rolling and pulling together and, Jesus wept, the wounds are closing.

Refugio’s now unmarked arms are smeared with wet blood, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it as he strips Josh, which would be far more embarrassing were Josh not still half-convinced he’s gonna die anyway, and then Red Harvest, whose hands are still dripping, presses them against Josh’s broken leg. Hard.

Now it hurts again, and Josh screams.

“Will you make him stop?” Red Harvest mutters, annoyance sparking in his mind, Josh is starting to distract him, and Refugio puts a hand on Josh’s head and strokes gently and Josh knows for a fact that Refugio can’t magically calm people down, that actually if he decided to he could crush Josh’s skull at this moment, that when this man touches him he is pretty much holding a gun to him.

But somehow it still makes him calm down, or distracts him, and Refugio is murmuring something in Spanish, chanting it over and over again and it’s like a lullaby and Josh’s face is still covered in cold sweat and his eyes are still streaming and his leg still hurts like nothing he’s ever felt as it snaps itself back into place with the help of Red Harvest and of Refugio’s blood smeared on the exposed bone, as it knits itself back together under Josh’s skin, which is now stitching itself back together in the place where the bone stabbed its way through.

Still, the bone is at least back in place, Josh’s leg isn’t twisted anymore, and it doesn’t have to be pushed down so that the broken pieces can find each other and push themselves back together, so the pain is bearable and he’s managed to bite back any screams without help from Refugio’s surprisingly comforting presence, which is good because Refugio’s digging into his skin again, cutting at the crooks of his elbows, and Red Harvest wipes some of the blood away again to dab it at any open wounds on Josh’s lower body, but this time Refugio also dips into his own blood.

“Close your eyes,” he says. “And your mouth.”

“Ain't too hard,” Josh murmurs.

“I said close your mouth,” Refugio repeats, and Josh presses his split lips together.

Something—he knows exactly what it is but God he wishes he didn’t—is smeared across his face like paint, and past the bone it’s the most painful, uncomfortable thing he’s ever felt as the swelling in his face goes down unnaturally quick, as the open wounds stitch themselves back together without a needle in sight, as split skin pushes itself back together, and Refugio’s hand is on Josh’s head again, and after a while he says, “Done.”

Josh feels numb except for when pain left over from the whole experience shoots through him, and his ribs still hurt—they’re probably a little broken, but that’s how it is sometimes—but mostly he’s good as new other than the fact that he has to take a bath as soon as possible.

He opens his eyes, blinks away the blood that isn’t his, tries to ignore the blood drying all over his body, and gasps out, “Thanks, Refugio.”

Refugio furrows his brow and shakes his head. “I go by Vasquez.”)

Faraday’s expression softens into sadness. “We got to be friends, me and Vasquez and Red Harvest. Me and Vasquez...” He swallows, shakes his head. “I cared. I did, I cared about ‘em, got DTs and Vasquez was the one who fixed me right up, Red Harvest, we just...it was easy for me to like him. He talked more back then.”

(You can’t really get to know someone just through their mind and not their actions, the way they interact with you, and Josh only realizes this when he becomes friends with Vasquez and Red Harvest. Besides, their minds are hard to read anyway—and it’s getting even harder, just like it was before, but Josh likes to think the breaking has slowed down with his company and more hope of leaving, and he’s sure of it with Vasquez at least—and they’re just a lot more fun when they’re not just minds to occasionally skim.

Josh hasn’t had many friends in his time, or maybe none at all. It’s not easy, being a mind reader, being a mind manipulator. It’s important to learn how to filter things out, how to not get overwhelmed, how to stay sane. Josh got very good at staying sane, and got very good at pretending he didn’t feel alone.

It’s about as fucked up as anything in his life that he’s finally found companionship in a place like this.

But now there’s hope. Josh hasn’t felt any kind of hope in a long time, is starting to realize he hasn’t felt much of anything in a long time except indifference, drifting through life and using his abilities to have a little fun and using alcohol to feel a little peace and maybe a buffer against the very loud world. Josh has to say that of all the psychics in this world, he has stayed incredibly sane. He knows Vasquez and Red Harvest haven’t been so lucky, but they’re fine, they’ll be fine, as long as they get out.

They’ve already tried, they explain, and they’ve been trying to put together a plan again for a long time now.

“But the first time, we didn’t have you,” Vasquez says.

“The first times,” Red Harvest chimes in. “We tried more than once.”

Red Harvest likes specificity, Josh has found, and he really likes detail. He doesn’t talk much, but he presses Josh for stories from his life, things that really happened. He’s very interested in things that really happened, and usually Josh would exaggerate a little, spin a tall tale or two, but with Red Harvest he makes the stories as absolutely accurate as possible, and, to his delight, finds that they’re still interesting. Any time Vasquez talks about his life before, he’s frustratingly vague.

There are other questions too, sometimes, but mostly normal things—what happened today? What happened yesterday? What did you do? Where were you? What did it look like? What does the rest of the house look like?

Vasquez is very patient about it. Josh tries to be. Vasquez knows plenty of other details too, about where Red Harvest goes, what he does, probably because they’ve known each other for who knows how long. Josh knows because he can read it—Red Harvest’s a very visual thinker, and Josh can see the room he goes to when he’s not in the den, all the little details, can see the people he shows dreams to, can even see the dreams.

It’s strange, seeing that separation of reality and fantasy in someone’s mind. Sometimes it’s even hard to tell which is which, and it’s even less helpful when Bogue’s people drug him just in case. Once he realizes that, Josh tells them that they don’t have to do it. He can effectively drug Red Harvest with his powers.  

They believe him, and Red Harvest actually smiles at him.

Vasquez, for his part, tends to come back from his visits to the outside world, if another room in the outside world that he goes to while chained up counts as the outside world, which it doesn’t, exhausted and scattered. His wounds may heal, but blood loss is still blood loss. He mutters things to himself in Spanish sometimes, and Josh doesn’t have to understand a word to know that they’re murderous.

Sometimes, when Vasquez paces around and mutters, Josh wonders if he’s still going to end up dead, just by accident, because every once in a while he’s sure that Vasquez has no idea who he is, too drunk on blood loss and rage.

He has nightmares, too, and visions, and he has to talk them through to know which is which. Josh helps with that—it’s difficult, but as he gets to know Vasquez he finds that he can differentiate between dream and vision. It becomes easier and easier.

In spite of the constant risk of grievous bodily harm, Josh feels secure around Vasquez, who’s a loyal man. A good man, in spite of the terrible things Josh knows he’s done. He doesn’t even care. He’s done plenty of terrible things too.

Even if Vasquez hurts him, it won’t be his fault. Josh knows it.

Vasquez does disapprove of Josh’s drinking, rolls his eyes when Josh comes in drunk. “Someday they will realize how much you need it,” he tells Josh. “And you will be sorry then.”

Josh doesn’t pay attention to that, considers it an empty threat even when Red Harvest also suggests that he stop getting drunk all the time because it’ll just hurt him in the end.

It’s when he’s thrown into the den for a while with no alcohol—not even a nip before he got in there, which was unfortunate because that meant he was already very interested in having a drink—because he may or may not have gotten into a fight that he remembers that Vasquez can see the future.

“You could’ve mentioned it!” he whines through his shaking. He’s starting to sweat, too, and he doesn’t think he’s been this distressed for a long time.

“He did,” Red Harvest points out, and Josh groans.

“It’s just not your night,” Vasquez says only somewhat sympathetically, and he pats Josh on the shoulder.

It’s not Josh’s day either, or next night, or next, and definitely not the next, when he starts seeing stars and the room keeps spinning. He hasn’t been locked in the den for such a long time, ever, and all he gets is food and water, which is useless to him.

Vasquez and Red Harvest start getting concerned after a while.

“Does he have a fever?” Red Harvest asks, though his hand is on Josh’s forehead and Josh is pretty sure he should know he has a fever.

Vasquez takes over, “He does.”

“He won’t eat or drink,” Red Harvest points out. “Nothing.”

“He said that I was trying to feed him ants last time I gave him food. He was...very angry.”

“Seeing things that are not real,” Red Harvest muses. “Strange.”

“...Right, yes.”

Josh isn’t even sure if he’s hearing an actual conversation at this point. Every time he sleeps, people start screaming, things start crawling on him, and he wakes up gasping and choking.

“Do you think people die from this?” he hears Red Harvest ask faintly after he comes to. He doesn’t think he was sleeping this time.

“They must.”

“Drink?”

“I think it would be for the best.”

Josh opens his eyes at the word ‘drink’, feeling a surge of hope, but nothing happens and he closes his eyes again, scratching at a crawling thing on his neck. They’re probably not saying anything at all. He’s hearing everything lately, and it’s useless to sift through it, so he just sinks into it and feels his head split and burn.

“The knife is gone,” someone says. “We had to take it away so he would not find it.”

“Mierda,” a more familiar voice mutters. “I hope he appreciates this. Turn away, Rojito.”

“...No matter what it is, I have seen worse.”

“Well, still turn!”

“Fine.”

Josh opens his eyes and sees a dark figure that’s very suddenly half-illuminated by light that’s pouring through a crack in the window.

The figure lifts a wrist to its mouth and—

Jesus fucking wept.

Josh wants to scream because this is definitely a nightmare, but instead he just sees the figure get closer and closer, and then so close that he can see the blood dripping from the chunk of lost skin that actually looks like it’s regrowing even as it pours blood, and Josh tries to scream but there’s blood in his mouth and skin moving around his lips and Vasquez says, “Swallow.”

Josh doesn’t really have a choice, so he does.

And he sleeps.

And there are no nightmares, and the next day there’s not a million voices in his head, and his fever’s broken, and he can breathe again.

“Thanks, Vasquez,” he mutters, and Vasquez smiles.

“Anything for you.”

Josh does not think about that.

He’s also not very thankful when Red Harvest somehow steals his flask and then continues stealing it every time he replaces it, but at least they let him have alcohol again out there, and at least he’s well enough to consider that maybe he can handle the itch, in the name of escaping. For Vasquez, who says that now he has a chance to not drink so much anymore, at least not so much that he almost dies, and he has a point.

So Josh starts drinking just a touch less, and it is a lot easier to focus his powers.

Besides, he really owes Vasquez.)

“But you left, and they...”

“Didn’t,” Faraday whispers. “It wasn’t what was supposed to happen. I got sick of being kept there real fast, even sicker when I saw what was going on, and see, I didn’t control them like Bogue thought. I helped them. And we thought that with me, we’d get out.” He sighs. “Maybe we did it too early, but things were getting desperate, y’know? We had to get out before it was too late, and we were so strong and I wasn’t drinking so much anymore and the other two, they were clear-minded and they weren’t in pain—see, if I knew they were gonna try to get out, I was supposed to tell, and Bogue has a guy who can make headaches—and...we thought it was gonna work. Turns out we weren’t enough to break out of the den, but hell if we didn’t try.”

“But you...” Emma starts, and Faraday cuts her off.

“We were enough to break out one.” Faraday blinks rapidly and then looks down at his deck, shuffling. “They got caught. I hid, and I didn’t, and I wanted to go back for them, but...I left. I just left.”

(It’s funny, because it’s the escape that makes Josh realize that he can erase his own memories, though he doesn’t even know when he did it.

All he remembers is finally putting it into motion even though Red Harvest said maybe it was too soon, and it was a little because of Red Harvest, because it was getting harder and harder to read him, harder and harder to tell what was reality and what was illusion when Josh brushed against his mind, because he was talking so much less and he looked so distant. It’s what Vasquez was worried about too, that and he just couldn’t take it anymore, suffering and watching people he cared for suffer, and there was violence bubbling in his blood and he was just at the end of his rope.

So one night, without even thinking on it too much, they went. And they got somewhere, because Josh remembers that Vasquez kept yelling something at him and Josh was in the courtyard with blood on his hands and skin under his fingernails, and he was gasping for breath and there was a howl of rage behind him and he noticed that no one was chasing him. No one was thinking about him at all. He wasn’t the most valuable one here and he swung around and found that the guards who were still alive and in one piece were paying attention to Red Harvest and Vasquez.

And Faraday knew that if he went to try to help them, they’d probably just all get captured, unless they didn’t, unless he saved them, and he thinks he took a step forward and he knows that Vasquez looked right at him and he knows that Vasquez opened his mouth to yell and then—

He doesn’t know anything, because he was safe. Exhausted and beat up, but safe.

He guesses that he didn’t try to help them after all.)

Emma looks at Faraday, studies him, and she knows she should feel angry that he was a coward, but he did what he could do, and she just feels pity. For him, for Vasquez, for Red Harvest. And suddenly a part of her wants to kill Bogue for them too. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say.

Faraday’s the one that breaks the silence. He holds out his deck to her and says, “Pick a card.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to within_a_dream for the eleventh hour betaing, cheerleading, putting up with my incredibly long texts, and generally being indispensable in the creation of this fic. You're the real MVP.


End file.
